Death sentences of 139 BDR soldiers for slaying 57 commanders on deputation from the army during the February 2009 mutiny were on Monday upheld by the High Court Division.
Death sentences of seven other BDR solders and Md Zakir Hossain, then a local Awami League leader were reduced to life terms.
Death sentences of four other BDR solders were acquitted and BDR deputy assistant director Habibur Rahman died in jail custody in February 2014 while his appeal against death sentence was pending in the High Court Division.
The unanimous verdict was delivered in a packed courtroom over two days ending Monday by a three-judge special bench of Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder.
Each judge read out what they called ‘a historic verdict’ in segments.
The court upheld life terms of 146 BDR men, acquitted 12 others of their life terms while two others died during pendency of their appeals.
On November 5, 2013, the capital’s 3rd additional sessions judge’s court, the trial court sentenced 151 BDR men and civilian Zakir Hossain to death, 160 BDR
men and two civilians including the late BNP leader Nasiruddin Pintu and local AL leader and retired BDR subedar Md Torab Ali to life terms and jailed 256 others, mostly BDR men, to varying terms and acquitted 278 accused, mostly BDR men.
Life term of Torab Ali, handed by the trial court as the mastermind of the mutiny, is among the 12 whose convictions were set aside.
Following appeals from the government, the bench set aside acquittals of 31 BDR men and they were sentenced to life terms.
The acquittals of 34 BDR men were upheld despite appeals from the government and four others were jailed for seven years each setting aside their acquittals.
The trial court had acquitted 278 accused and the government appealed challenging acquittals of 59 of them.
The trial court had sentenced 256 accused to varying jail terms and the High Court Division upheld the conviction of 196 and acquitted 29 others while 28 did not appeal against their sentences and three died in custody during pendency of their appeals.
The government would, said deputy attorney general KM Zahid Sarwar Kazal, appeal against setting aside Torab’s life term and reduction of Zakir’s death sentence to life term.
The trial court convicted Zakir and Torab for masterminding the mutiny. Zakir was also found guilty of holding meetings of mutineers at Prime Coaching Centre, he runs at Azimpur, near the BDR headquarters at Peelkhana.
In the observations, the bench called it a ‘wrong decision’ on the part of the caretaker government to introduce ‘Operation Dal Bhat’ run by the BDR and said no such programme should be taken again.
The bench called for holding probes to find out why BDR’s intelligence agency failed to gather information that a mutiny was brewing to coincide with BDR Week celebrations.
In his observations, presiding judge, Justice Md Shawkat Hossain called it ‘a historic case about pre-planned massacre of 57 brilliant army officers, then serving BDR on deputation, by some ambitious BDR sepoys during their 30-hour mutiny spanning February 25 and 26, 2009.’
He said that the BDR director general and his wife were among those brutally killed by the mutineers but their two children, a son and a daughter escaped the slaying as they were at school.
He said that the victims were buried in mass graves in bids to hide the bodies of the slain.
He said that during the Liberation War only 55 army officers died in action.
During the mutiny which began shortly after the then BDR director general stood to deliver his speech at the Durbar Hall of the BDR headquarters, the mutineers gunned down their commanders.
The BDR men began the mutiny to realize their demands including not to send army officers on deputation to BDR as its commanders.
In 2010, BDR was renamed as Border Guards Bangladesh, in short BGB.
Source: New Age.
